Paul Tripp: Isn't it nice to know that God is not calling you to acquire power so that you can feel safe? No, what God actually does is He invites you to rest.

Kate Crowley: From Paul Tripp Ministries, this is Right Here, Right Now, connecting the transforming power of Jesus Christ to everyday life. Here, now, is Paul Tripp.

Paul Tripp: It was about as frustrating as an evening could be. It seemed like a simple plan, not really rocket science at all. We would have a simple meal at a huge Mexican restaurant where there would be plenty of room for a family of six. We could all taste the nachos, the enchiladas, the burritos.

I opened the restaurant door for my family, only to be greeted by twenty-two million other families with the exact, same idea. I bumped, pressed, squeezed, and excused my way to the hostess desk to ask, "How long?" only to be told that for a party of six, the wait would be approximately an hour-and-a-half. I wasn't brave enough to sign my ravenous family up for such a long wait without consulting with them first. So, I pressed back through the crowd. After what seemed to be an excessively long negotiation, I pressed back through the crowd again and signed us up. There was a mall nearby where we could kill the time.

An hour-and-a-half later, we were back at the restaurant, only to discover that the crowd had not dissipated as we had hoped. After two hours from the moment I was first at the hostess desk, we were seated. We were all very excited and very hungry. The problem was that it was a half hour before they took our order--and another forty-five minutes before our food actually came, and when it did, we discovered that they had messed up the order.

By this time, a frazzled manager staggered up to our table and apologized for what had happened and gave us our meals on the house. He offered us dessert, but we were afraid to order it because it may take so long that we wouldn't make it for work the next day.

Have you ever been in the middle of a situation and wondered, "Who in the world is in charge?" Did you ever have one of those evenings where it just seemed like such a simple plan, only to blow up in your face? Does your life seem all too much like our chaotic night in that Mexican restaurant? Are you tired of waiting? Would you like a little more control right here, right now? Did you ever want to look up and say, "May I speak to the manager, please?"

Music: "Clocks" by Coldplay

The lights go out and I can't be saved
Tides that I tried to swim against
Have brought me down upon my knees
Oh, I beg, I'm begging please

Music: come out, all things unsaid

Shoot an apple off my head
And a trouble that can't be named
The tiger's waiting to be tamed

Music: You are

You are

Kate Crowley: And you are listening to Right Here, Right Now. Do you feel like things are spinning out of control? Well, you may find some stability from today's Christmas edition of Right Here, Right Now with Paul Tripp. And be sure and tell your friends that they can join Paul here each weekday at 11 A.M. and 11 P.M. this evening on WFIL with a goal to remind you, every day, that there really is help in Jesus Christ right here, right now.

By the way, there are plenty of helpful resources available online at paultrippministries.org, including Paul's book, War of Words. That's at paultrippministries, T-R-I-P-P, paultrippministries.org. Right now, "May I Speak to the Manager, Please? A world out of control" as Right Here, Right Now continues.

Does Your Life Feel Out of Control?

Paul Tripp: Perhaps your life does seem like that restaurant, that frustrating night with my family with the crowd of twenty-two million people in the way and a wait that you just wouldn't believe. Maybe your life seems that way. Maybe you're out there, and it seems like in so many areas with your family, and your children, and your friends, and your church, and work, and finances, you've just had to wait. You feel like you're always waiting. Or, maybe you're tired of waiting only to be disappointed at the end. You've waited, but what you've received at the end of the way hasn't been at all what you expected it to be. Maybe you're tired of feeling that you are just another face in the crowd, just another name in line.

You wonder--Does anybody really care? Does anybody really know what you're waiting for? Is there going to be anything worthwhile at the other end of the wait? Maybe you're tired of looking around and seeing other people eating their fill, and you wonder why you're still standing, hoping, and hungry.

Where in your life, right now, are you hoping and hungry? Hoping and hungry with your children? Hoping and hungry with your friends? Hoping and hungry in your marriage? Hoping and hungry in your physical life? Hoping and hungry with your church? Just hoping and hungry? Your life not being at all what you thought it would be? Maybe you've gone to the mall, you know. You've tried, somehow, to distract yourself, but it hasn't helped you for very long. How, in your wait, do you seek to distract yourself? Distract yourself with money? Distract yourself with possessions? Distract yourself with friendships? Distract yourself with food? Distract yourself with TV and other forms of entertainment? How do you distract yourself as you're sitting there waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and waiting?

Maybe you've gotten so close to your dreams that you can smell the food and hold the menu, but you never actually seem to get the meal. It feels like you've been toyed with. You're so close, but those things just slip through your fingers like sand. Maybe you've given up waiting, and you've just decided you're going to settle for second best.

Where, in your life right now, are you settling for second best? Are there second best things in your marriage that you've settled for? Are there second best things in your friendships that you've settled for? Are there second best things in your personal life that you've settle for? Where are you settling for second best?

Or, maybe you've been waiting all your life for your name to be called. It doesn't seem like your name will ever be called. You see other people's names called. You see people who are getting the exact things that you have longed for. They're not bad things, and you wonder: Why don't I ever get those things? Or, maybe you've watched the crowd in the lobby dwindle, and dwindle, and dwindle, and you're still waiting.

You see, there's probably a place in your life, right here right now, today, where you've wanted to ask, "May I talk with the manager, please? Who's in charge? Who's making these decisions? Who's keeping my life from being what it could be?"

Do you realize that there is an awful lot of the world that is not under your control? Realize, you have as about as much control over all of those things as I did that night over that crowd in that restaurant? And, you are tired of waiting, and you do want to ask the question, "May I speak with the manager, please?"

Music: "Trouble In Mind" by Nina Simone

Trouble in mind
Trouble in mind, I'm blue
But I won't be blue always
Cause the sun is gonna' shine
My back door someday
Trouble in mind, it's true
I have almost lost my mind
Never had so much
Trouble in my life before
I'm gonna' lay my head
On some lonesome railroad line
Let the 2:19 train
Ease my troubled mind

Things I Know About You

Paul Tripp: There are things I know about you even though I don't know you, because I know these things about me. I know that your life has not worked according to your plan. Now, if that's a brand-new insight for you, you're probably seriously comatose. I know that last month didn't work according to your plan. I know that yesterday didn't work according to your plan. I know that today, already, probably hasn't worked according to your plan. And I know that, like me, you could've never written the story that is your life. Your personal story has taken twists and turns that you did not plan and did not see coming. I know there are moments when your story doesn't make any sense to you. I know there are moments when you really do feel lost in the middle of your own story.

Now when you are lost, think with me. What is it that you need? Pretend with me that I'm lost...let's say...in London. You know, I know I'm in England, and I know I'm in London, but I'm completely lost. I don't know how to get where I'm going. I mean, I'm on earth, and I'm in this big city, but I don't know where to go. What is it that I need?

Well, the spontaneous response to that question is you need directions. But think with me for just a moment--if all you give me is directions, and I get to where I want to go, and I do what I want to do there, and I walk seven blocks away, what is my condition again? Well, I'm lost. You see, what I actually need is what the man who is capable of giving me directions has. Although he is standing with me on the sidewalk there in the middle of London, in his mind, he's flying over London. He has the helicopter view of London embedded in his brain. He knows how every neighborhood touches every other neighborhood. He knows how the streets intersect with one another. You can't get this man lost because he has the big picture of the city. That's why he is able to give me directions.

You see, if I'm lost, what I actually need is the helicopter view of the city so that I can be in that place without getting lost again. You see, I'm afraid that in our loss of control when we are surprised by own story, that it feels like we don't belong in our own story, that what we tend to do is reduce the Bible down to a set of directions. When we're lost, it's our tendency to reduce the Bible down to directions. And, I don't know if you've noticed, but your Bible doesn't function well just as a set of directions because your Bible is not arranged by topic with handy-dandy, little tabs on the side of the page. No! That's not a mistake. The Bible is arranged just as God intended it. God never intended your Bible to be a dictionary. He never intended it to be a life encyclopedia. Your Bible is not a compendium of human problems and divine solutions. Your Bible is a story. Even more accurately, your Bible is a theologically annotated story. It's a story, the world's most important story, with explanatory notes.

The great story of the Bible is meant to be the over-arching story that makes sense out of the individual story of every person who ever lived. This story is meant to give me the helicopter view of everyday life, so I would not be lost again, and again, and again as I matriculate my way through the middle of my own story. So, when you and I reduce the Bible to a set of directions, when we treat it like an encyclopedia, you do violence to its message.

For example, the things that the Bible has to say about friendship, or the things the Bible has to say about money, or the things the Bible has to say about marriage, cannot be properly understood if you take those things, those passages out of the whole context of Scripture. Those principles, those observations are embedded in a story. And unless you understand the story, you can't make proper sense out of those principles.

Now, you may be asking yourself the question, "What does all of this have to do with our everyday lives? What does all of this have to do with our tendency to get ourselves lost? What does this all have to do with that?" Well, here it is. The Bible is a story of grace, but a story of a God of grace, who meets people right in the middle of the chaotic messiness of life in a fallen world. The Bible actually pictures the very chaos and lack of control that we struggle with so often. The pages of the Bible are filled with shocking sorrow, unpredictable difficulty, stunning victories, and crushing defeats. The story of the Bible is a story where hope lives right next to despair, where faith is right down the street from doubt, where confusion bumps right into wisdom.

You see, the story of the Bible is not this pristine, idealistic world of wonderful situations and noble people who always did the right thing. No! The story of the Bible is of a God who is working His plan and people who often don't have a clue. The Bible is not so much a book of principles, but the narrative of a God of grace who is not content to leave His creation in the mess that it's in.

Here is what you have got to understand. The Bible predicts both an out-of-control world that is under careful control, an out-of-control world that is under careful control. Yes, this world is out of our control. Yes, there are many situations that seem completely out of control to us. Yes, we face things that just seem to us to be chaos without any direction, without any purpose, without any reason, without any control. That's how the world looks to us, a fabric of the messiness that we don't understand, and we can't make sense of.

Yet, the Bible is actually a story. It's a story that's going somewhere. It's a story that has meaning and purpose and direction. It's a story that will have a culmination, a wonderful culmination, but it's a surprising story. It's a chaotic story. It's a messy story. It's a realistic, everyday life. This is just like your world story, and that story of the Bible is meant to be the grand story that makes sense of every story of every human being who has ever walked the face of this earth. Listen, your life is out of your control, but it is under careful control.

Music: "The Solid Rock" by Edward Mote and William B. Bradbury

My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus' blood and righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly lean on Jesus' name.
On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand,
All other ground is sinking sand.
Oh...the solid Rock
Christ, the solid Rock, I stand
Oh...the solid Rock
Christ, the solid Rock, I stand

Wishing for the Cosmic Joystick

Paul Tripp: Yes, it bugs me too. I do wish there were more things in life that were under my control. I do wish that I had my hands on the cosmic joystick. There are times when I feel so frustrated; there are times when I feel so helpless. There are times when I'm just tired of things that don't seem to be working the way they ought to be working. There are times when I do wish, and this is embarrassing to admit, that I was the lord of the universe. Or, I guess I would settle--the lord of my portion of the universe.

Like you, I tend to hate obstacles. Like you, I try to plan my way around things that could turn out to be unpredictable. Like you, I want things to go so smoothly and to work very well. Like you, I wish I knew everything that's going to happen before it happens so I could be prepared for it. But the fact that I am not in control should not make me think that my world is out of control. Let me repeat that again. I think this is a very important observation. The fact that I am not in control should not make me think that my world is out of control, and that's often what happens to us. Because the world is outside of our control, we think that the world is out of control, but it's not. It is very important to understand that security, true personal security, you know, that inner sense of well-being that greets you in the morning that you carry throughout the day, that security is not the result of personal power. No! It was never meant to be connected to personal power. That inner source of well-being is rather the product, the result of trust.

Think about this truth. I mean, this is so obvious, but I think it needs to be stated, and it needs to be heard. You could never acquire enough personal power to guarantee that your life would be absolutely free of danger. Imagine all of the myriad of things just in your local environment that you would have to absolutely be in personal control of to guarantee that you would never face a trial; you would never face suffering; you would never face danger of any kind. Imagine the awesome power that you would have.

So, you will never ever acquire enough personal power to guarantee that your life is absolutely free from danger. You could never acquire enough functional insight and wisdom to guarantee that you would be free of danger. Imagine how wise, how infinitely, stunningly wise you would have to be to guarantee that nothing ever wrong or unpredictable would happen in your life.

So, the story of the Bible invites you to do this. It invites you, in fact, to find security in a very, very different way. The Bible story, the Biblical narrative puts a loving and sovereign God right in the middle of my chaos, right there with me, and that changes everything.

(Music Interlude)

Paul Tripp: So, as I've tried to get you to think about your life in the context of the Biblical story, how are you feeling about your own personal story? How are you feeling about the things that you face every day that you would never have chosen to be in your life? How are you doing with the obstacles that get in the way of good things? How are you doing with the people that trouble the waters of your world? Isn't it nice to know that God is not calling you to acquire power so that you can feel safe? No! What God actually does is He invites you to rest. No! Not rest because you've figured it all out; and, no, not rest because you've finally come up with a plan to deal with it all; and, no, not rest because the future looks pretty bright. No! He invites you to rest in Him. Rest is the result of not control or understanding; rest is the result of a relationship.

You see, that God rules over the host of heaven and the inhabitants of earth. No one can stop His hand or say, "What have you done?" That's what it says in Daniel. That God who loves you, that God who wants you to know rest, that God, who is a God of forgiving and empowering grace, is the main character of the main story. And as long as that God is on center stage, as long as He is the main character in His story, there really is a reason to have hope right here, right now.

Kate Crowley: "Discovering Hope," Paul Tripp from the series, "May I Speak to the Manager, Please?" and today's lesson, "A World Out Of Control," here on Right Here, Right Now. Now, you can find some order in this world of disorder by going online and picking up a copy of War of Words. In this book, Paul Tripp examines four fundamental life-altering principles to help you on your journey of a fulfilled life. That's War of Words. Go to paultrippministries.org. That's all one word, paultripp, spelled T-R-I-P-P, paultrippministries.org.

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Tomorrow, Paul looks at "God and Surprises" from his series, "May I Speak to the Manager, Please?" I'm Kate Crowley. Merry Christmas! And remember, that in Jesus Christ, there really is help, right here, right now.